[tpmx]

Rogin's opinion peace here includes something about that:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/04/covid-tru...

By the end of March, China had delivered aid to 120 countries, a massive “mask diplomacy” effort. Early on, these Chinese efforts were widely welcomed — but later “mask diplomacy” would become synonymous with China’s use of aid as a means of leverage over countries that might want to criticize it or its handling of the coronavirus outbreak that had begun within its borders.

...

Privately but explicitly, Chinese diplomats told U.S. officials they would cut off exports of medical supplies to the United States if Washington wasn’t careful in this war of words. Beijing was seeking to snuff out any discussion of the virus, along with any criticism of its domestic response and any allegation that it was hiding or misrepresenting information about the virus. In a move that U.S. officials saw as punitive, Beijing had halted exports of items such as face masks, even when they were made by American companies like 3M, which had factories inside China